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Martin responded: “I am not sure HBO would agree that the spinoffs (I prefer the term ‘successor shows’ myself) could have waited.

“With GOT set to end in 2019, they put five of them in the works, so as to have a new show… or more than one… to take up the mantle in 2020. (Development takes time).

“The successor shows were going to happen regardless. I prefer that they happen with my participation and guidance, rather than without it.”

This was around the same time he spoke out on why he has stopped posting sample chapters from the book.

Dead Game of Thrones characters still alive in The Winds of Winter

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Hodor

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The Boltons

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Lord Petyr Baelish

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Tommen Baratheon

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Myrcella Baratheon

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The Tyrells

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The High Sparrow

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Stannis Baratheon

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Barristan Selmy

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Brynden Tully

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Jeyne Westerling (Talisa Maegyr)

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Hizdahr zo Loraq

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Doran Martell

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Shireen Baratheon

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Selyse Baratheon

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Lady Stark/Lady Stoneheart

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Mance Rayder

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Walder Frey

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“I think I have probably released too many sample chapters already,” he said.

“Put them all together, and what, there are probably more than a hundred pages (I honestly don’t know, I have never tried the exercise).

“In the past, I have always been happy to release sample chapters, and to read other chapters at cons. But in this age of the internet, no good deed goes unpunished.

GETTY

He has a number of ventures on the boil

“That was brought home to me when the Dozois anthology Book of Swords was released, and I found myself reading reviews that slammed Sons of the Dragon as ‘old, retread’ material because I’d read the story at a couple cons… for the entertainment of the few hundred people in the audience, but of course summaries went up all over the web, and somehow in the minds of some what should have been a brand new reading experience became old and familiar.”